HISD will move Key students to FlemingBut some question how arrangement will work, saying schools are rivals

By Ericka Mellon, Jennifer Radcliffe |
September 22, 2007

Shawn Gordon, left, keeps an eye on nieces Sade Evans, 12, and Keva Provost, 12, whom she is home schooling at her office, along with her two daughters, who felt sick after attending Key Middle School. Gordon called the move to Fleming "a wonderful idea."

Students and teachers from the now infamous Key Middle School will report to class Wednesday at nearby Fleming Middle School — temporarily abandoning a building that many say has made them sick over the first three weeks of school.

But some students and parents aren't sure how Key and Fleming students will coexist. They're rival schools that have fought in the past, teens said.

"I don't think it's right," said Anthony Robicheaux, 13, a seventh-grader at Fleming. "We're rivals. Key students don't really get along with Fleming."

How students will behave is one of many lingering questions for Key Middle School parents and teachers. The most daunting issue remains what caused so many teachers and students to fall sick.

Several teachers have been taken from campus by ambulance since school began in late August. A record 20 of the campus' 56 or so teachers missed school Friday, said Corina Ortiz, the Houston Federation of Teachers representative for both middle schools.

"They're at their wit's ends," Ortiz said, adding that classes were doubled up this week since substitute teachers are reluctant to take jobs at the campus. "The teachers at this point are so tired and so run down — physically, emotionally, spiritually."

Students won't have to make up the classes they'll miss Monday and Tuesday, as the district tries to figure out the logistics of moving 600 teachers and students. It shouldn't require any heavy lifting since staff members have been told to leave everything but their personal items behind, Ortiz said.

HISD officials were short on details Friday about the setup at Fleming, which was built to hold 1,200 students. Together the two schools enroll about 1,100 students.

"Fleming will be full, but it will work," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said, adding that the temporary arrangement could last until the semester ends in December.

Key Middle School parents are relieved their children are finally being moved.

"That's a wonderful idea," mother Shawn Gordon said. "They should have decided that two weeks ago."

But her 14-year-old niece, Diamond, who has stayed home for more than a week, doesn't support the decision.

"I'm not going," she said. "Gang stuff is going on there."

Key Middle School mother Latarsha Agnew said she wishes HISD could provide more details on how the schools will be combined.

"I'm just concerned about how many students Fleming has and how they put them together," she said. "They should keep them separate (on Fleming's campus) because they're separate schools."

A few Fleming students vowed to try to be good hosts, despite their concerns about what's been happening at Key.

"Some of them are sick. If they're coming here, we might get sick, too," said Jacoby Johnson, 13, an eighth-grader at Fleming Middle School.

While she's glad the Key campus is being evacuated, Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said she also worries about possible gang fights.

"It will be an improvement in the health conditions," she said, "but I just seriously hope, given the rival gangs, that they get additional police from the city and additional security on campus."

The gang rivalry, Fallon said, is "common knowledge."

Abbott called it a typical situation for competing sports teams.

"These kids all live in nearby neighborhoods," he said, "but all middle schools and high schools think of themselves as sports rivals. That's traditional."

Abbott would not say how many officers would be at Fleming, saying that would compromise security, but said the district would have "appropriate HISD police presence there."

He also couldn't provide details on what tests will be conducted at Key over the next several weeks.

"I hope at the end of the day, we'll get to the bottom of the problem," he said. "It's incumbent upon us to assure our students, our teachers, our janitors, our administrators and our parents that are in and out of schools that they're safe."